In a conventional image forming apparatus, user authentication is carried out through a security card (using RFID technology). In such an image forming apparatus, the user authentication is carried out by closing a security card owned by a user to an installed RFID tag reader/writer (RFID terminal).
However, in the authentication method, a card is held over the RFID terminal and an intended operation is executed after the authentication is completed, and thus undesirable amount time and labor are spent until the operation is executed.